Sr. Clare Sabini, FMIJ

  Every time I look back and reflect on my childhood spent in Montegroppo, I
discover hidden blessings sown by God on my path.  It was a simple life and,
without the distractions of our technological age, our days were spent with
family, Church, school and friends.  Play time was filled with fun that we kids
had to invent day by day.                                         

  Faith played a very important part in my family’s life.  My parents were very
spiritual people.  Our days began with prayer and ended with prayer.  Every
other word spoken referred to God’s will, mercy, love, help.  Living on a plateau
with the hills surrounding us, nature spread its seasonal beauty around.  I loved
Spring time.  I loved to run in the fields, trying to catch butterflies by day and
lightning bugs in the evening.  The scent of wild flowers is something I can’t
forget.  As I ran through the tall grass fields, picking flowers for the statues of
Mary and the saints, I felt the presence of God.

  As children, we attended Mass and catechism regularly.  On Sunday afternoons, we attended Vespers, or the Rosary and always Exposition, Adoration, and Benediction.  I remember the celebrations throughout the year:  Advent, Lent, the novenas, the processions in honor of the Eucharist, Mary, the Saints.  I think my vocation seed was planted then.  I didn’t understand much but I knew God loved me and was all around me.  I often find myself going back in my memory to those days and, in some way, I become a child again, praying as I did then.
Growing up, I always heard my father praying that God would choose one of us children for either the Priesthood or Sisterhood.  I looked up to my older sister and brother whom I admired and loved dearly.  I was sure that, if God would answer my father’s prayer, it would be one of them that would receive the Call.  I never thought of a religious vocation for myself.

  When I was about 12 years old, a cousin of ours returned home from Bolivia.  He was a Don Bosco missionary and a Sabini.  So, we felt honored by his presence.  His family lived next door to us and he visited us often.  One day, he gave me a medal of St. John Bosco and, out of the blue, asked me if I had ever thought of becoming a religious sister.  He continued: “Consider becoming a Salesian Sister.”  At that moment, my thoughts were:  “Who, me?  I don’t think so.”

  When I was 13 years old, my family moved to New York City.  Both of my parents had brothers and sisters living there.  When we arrived, our relatives took care of us and made sure our needs were provided for.  I was enrolled in the local parish Catholic School, Our Lady of Pompeii.  I loved the Sisters and I was in awe of them.  I held the Sisters in the highest esteem and I never saw myself as being one someday but I feel that I learned to love and cherish religious life during my two years at OLP School.
I moved on to Washington Irving High School.  It was a culture shock!  The student body was made up of four thousand girls from all over the world.  I made friends of many nationalities and races.  Some I have kept as friends up to the present day.  I joined the Newman Club at school and I got involved with different activities, especially weekend retreats.

  During my early teen, I was often challenged by certain individuals in my extended family.  They became a threat to my spiritual values and my integrity.  I attended a retreat and laid my frustration before Jesus.  Upon returning home, I felt stronger and more sure of myself but it wasn’t enough.  I needed more.  I went on another weekend retreat.  It was a turning point. As I left the place, I felt changed:  I felt that Jesus was inviting me to something more…to dedicate my life totally to HIM.  I experienced a TUG from within.  This was so unusual.  I did not know what to do, what to think, what to believe.  “Why would Jesus want me?  I am too little for lofty things.  What does all this mean?  How do I begin to find out?”

  I joined the Italian Catholic Action Youth and became very active.  I met many new friends and the Scalabrini Fathers became my advisors and spiritual directors.  We did many wonderful things:  attended retreats and monthly communion breakfasts; visited the sick and the elderly; welcomed new immigrants.  Working with new immigrants was something I really loved.  I had progressed beyond many of them who had just arrived: I had been here for several years and had learned the language; I graduated from high school; I became a US citizen and entered the world of work.

  One Sunday afternoon in 1962, a group of friends and I went to visit a ship that had just arrived from Italy and obtain a list of new immigrants.  We would contact them and direct them to the nearest Italian National Church in the city where they settled.  Monsignor Concina, the chaplain, was very welcoming but I don’t remember much else from the visit.  During the week, I received a letter from him which read something like this: “Of all the young women that came to visit Sunday, you stood out for me.  I think you have a vocation to the religious life and you should pursue it.”   While this shed some light on the darkness I was experiencing in my discernment, I was, at the same time, angry with God.  I just wanted to be left alone to live my life in New York with my family and friends, my work and my ACI group.

  I visited with Msgr. Concina the next time he came to New York.  I told him that the thought of a possible Religious Vocation had besieged me for several years but I had visited several communities and did not feel comfortable with any of them.  I was ready to abandon the search and focus on going back to school and helping my family.  He suggested I visit a group of Franciscan Sisters from Assisi who had recently arrived on his ship.  The Sisters were teachers and cared for children.  Since I knew Italian, I could go to Assisi for my formation years.  My response was: I did not want to teach; I was not interested in children; and, most certainly, I would not go to Italy for my formation.  My family, friends, job, and life were in NYC and I had a lot to hope for.

  Msgr. Concina and I remained in touch but, for two more years, I fought with God about my religious vocation.  In 1964, Msgr. Concina informed me that he wanted to make sure I followed my Call before he retired.  He said that he would give those Franciscan Sisters my address and ask them to get in touch with me.  Soon, I received a letter from Sister Rosalba, one of the three Sisters who had traveled on the Vulcania to open the USA mission in Minotola NJ.  A few days later, a phone call came.  Sister was in Brooklyn visiting friends and would like to meet me.  I really hesitated, but I realized I had to give God another chance.

  My visit with Sr. Rosalba went OK.  I was shy and nervous but the visit helped me realize that all my hesitations had to become trust in God as I sensed that the FMIJ was the Religious Community God had in mind for me.  Quite a few times in the summer of 1964, I visited the Sisters in Minotola NJ.  I was inspired by them and they were glad to have the first young woman from the USA joining them.  I was not happy about going to Italy for my initial formation but, gradually, I became convinced that the only way to answer God’s Call was to say “YES.”  Deep inside, I knew that, in the end, God would win.

During these years of search, I had many confirmation episodes.  At the time, I considered them just events in my life but now, as I look back, I see them all as little messages from the Almighty.  I shall briefly recount some of these experiences.

  My first real job was as a bi-lingual assistant secretary.  I was 18 years old, a bit shy and tiny but I was working on Wall Street.  My boss, Dr. Spritzman, was very good to me.  He was a German Jew who had been in a concentration camp.  He still had scars in his arm and face and, on his upper arm, he still had his prisoner number.  He had gone to Italy after escaping from the concentration camp and, after the war, had become the Vice President of FIAT.  With the help of his colleague, Dr. Guala, who had become a Trappist monk, he converted to Catholicism.  I remembered that, during my childhood in Italy, the news was all over the radio and newspapers that the Vice President of Fiat had become a Trappist Monk.  Now, his friend was my boss.  AMAZING!  Brother Guala and I corresponded for a while and I still have some correspondence from him as a relic that ties me to that moment in my life.

  I loved clothes.  Every time I got paid, some money went in the bank but some I spent on clothes.  I was not extravagant; just a young girl who liked to dress well. Routinely, on Fridays after we got paid at work, a colleague and I would go to the boutique to look for something interesting to purchase.  One time, after I paid my bill, I stepped over by the racks while my colleague paid hers.  I overheard the cashier tell her:  “I have noticed that girl…there is something special about her…I think she has a vocation to be a Sister.”  I wanted to run away but politely waited for my colleague who asked me if I had heard “THAT.” 

  In 1963, I accepted another job.  I felt like I was on top of the world.  One day, I was on my way to Mass during my lunch break.  I was stopped by a woman I had never met before or since.  She said she worked in the same building and had been observing me.  She said she liked the way I dress and thought there was something special about me. I walked away before she could add anything else to that comment.

  In 1964, the Saturday before Mothers’ Day, my sister and I went to purchase a gift for our Mom.  We picked a very large, beautiful, blue sewing kit.  My sister stepped to the cashier to pay while I looked around at the counters nearby.  The cashier told my sister:  “There’s something special about that girl over there.  I bet she is going to be a Nun!”  I was a bit taken aback and not happy because, up to that moment, I had not said a single word to my family about becoming a religious.  I felt that God had let the cat out of the bag.  I had a few words with God that night.

  Around that same time, a young man, named Tony, showed some interest in me.  We were both shy but finally we talked and decided to go to Central Park for a nice walk and talk.  As we sat on a bench by the lake, Tony dared to say to me:  “You know, you are a really nice girl but, perhaps, you should become a sister.”  At that moment, I wished I could have turned into a squirrel and run up a tree.

  In early July 1964, I decided to go for another weekend retreat to look for solitude and answers.  My intention was to pray and pray and pray and to ask God for some definite sign. I put God to the test and told God that I wanted an answer, once for all.  The retreat master was Fr. Charles May, a Capuchin Friar, whose three nieces would one day join the same community of the FMIJ in South Jersey. 

  During the retreat, I borrowed a pamphlet on vocations from a rack.  The title was something like: “Positive and Negative Signs of a Vocation to the Religious Life.”  I read the booklet attentively because I was looking for all the signs that would show me I had no vocation.  I came to the last page and I was very glad to see that the signs could go both ways but the last paragraph really got me.  It read: “If you have repugnancies about religious life then, for sure, you have a vocation.”  That was it!  I had many repugnancies about religious life.  At that point in my life, I had many hopes for my future.  I loved my family and enjoyed being in our new home in Queens.  I loved clothes and liked to dress well.  I had a good job, many friends.  I was back in school.  I even had a boy who was interested in me.  The last thing I wanted to do was leave it all.  And why?  For God????   

  But meeting Sister Rosalba had made a difference.  I knew that there was no escaping God. If I did not at least go forward and seek my possible vocation….I would probably regret it the rest of my life.  So, on September 8, 1964, my 22^nd birthday, I reluctantly said “YES” to God.  Then, I did all the things I did not want to do.  I left my family in Queens to go to Assisi for my initial formation.  I left all the possibilities behind. How could I have done that if a Calling from God and all the graces necessary to respond had not been given to me?  Saying yes to God took all the strength I had within.  Yes, God was with me all along and, a little at a time, God revealed the plan for my life in the midst of doubt, confusion, refusal to say YES, and doing everything to distract myself from hearing God’s call.

  The biggest confirmation of all turned out to be that Bice Chersi, one of my closest friends in the Italian Catholic Action Group, joined me in Assisi in 1966, and became Sr. Aura Marina. God’s way of alluring me into following the call to Religious Live still amazes me.

  I did not know my Sisters, I had never heard of them, and when I started my search for a religious community, looking into books, etc., they hade not even arrived in the United States. Yet God had it all planned.  I remember Paul the Apostle….He had never met Jesus while he was alive, and he had not spoken to any of the disciples, but he was set on searching for the truth.  He did find the truth on the road to Damascus.  As he said, he was no less an Apostle, because Christ called him in most personal way.

  Today, 45 years since my decisive “YES” I can see how God worked in my life and how God’s presence and grace have accompanied me every step of the way.  I am here to recount God’s blessings and to admit that, indeed, “life is a mystery to be lived” in union with God, day by day.

  Forty-five years…I can hardly believe it.  As I look back, I ask myself, “Where has time gone?”  Living religious life is living LIFE, with its ups and downs.  LIFE requires all we have… to live it as best we can, no matter what one’s vocation is.  Some of the most difficult moments have been the loss of my parents.  Some of the happiest moments have been in ministry related joys, and the closeness and bonding in the fraternity.  I can remember that, in all the difficult times, when I dare to ask God for his will, the reply came… “Why do you doubt? 

  Remember the days of your youth.  That calling you experienced is an event, marked in precise places and times.  I have not changed my mind!”  God’s calling still rings in my ear and heart with undeniable evidence.  A vocation is not an event happening once, but is ongoing, constantly new.  Its resonance from the days of youth and the 45 years that followed give strength, fulfillment, peace and the joy of life.  Thank you, God, for choosing me with all my limitations.  I renew my gift of self and dedication to YOU, my Sisters, my Institute, and the Church.